Iceland’s Post Office Aims To ‘Go Green’ By 2025

Iceland’s Post Office Pósturinn is collaborating with the company VETNIS to investigate using hydrogen for trucks on longer routes where other energy sources are less suitable, reports Vísir.

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Last year, the office launched a pilot project to determine where it might be appropriate to set up hydrogen stations. The development of hydrogen production in Iceland and the development of infrastructure could take a few years, but many people believe that hydrogen will replace fossil fuels along with electricity and methane.

“We at Pósturinn are constantly looking for opportunities to reduce carbon emissions from transport and distribution. This is very important to us and we want to be at the forefront of Icelandic transport and distribution companies in environmental matters and use the most environmentally friendly cars available at any given time. Today, Pósturinn’s vehicles are powered by fossil fuels, electricity, and methane, but in the future, we aim for the entire fleet to run on renewable energy sources of various kinds, as conditions, distances and routes are varied,” says Pósturinn Director Guðmundur Karl Guðjónsson.

Drove about 5.5 million kilometers in the year 2021

According to Guðmundur Karl, Pósturinn’s employees and contractors drove about 5.5 million km in 2021. “This includes both longer-distance transport, transport between places, and distribution in urban and rural areas.”

“Bicycle mail now distributes letters in urban areas on about 50 electric mail bikes, which replaced the number of cars that staff previously drove to the neighborhoods. In 2021, the bicycle mail drove close to 400,000 km,” he says. The idea of electric bicycles originally came from one of Pósturinn’s employees.

A new Scania truck is added to the fleet

At the beginning of 2022, a new truck from Swedish manufacturer Scania was added to Pósturinn’s fleet. Scania recently won the prestigious “Green Truck” award for the sixth time in a row, which is awarded for outstanding efficiency in transport and utilization of fuel. “We at Pósturinn closely monitor the company’s potential in the coming years to reduce the company’s carbon footprint in transport and distribution, and we aim for all distribution of smaller cars in urban areas to be ‘green’ by 2025,” says Guðmundur Karl.